Gran Turismo 6: Get Ready to Pay $150 For a Digital Ferrari

Gran Turismo 6 is coming to the United States this Friday, but we've already seen the future of simulation racing with Forza Motorsport 5. That future involves spending $60 for the game and then grinding or buying virtual currency to unlock the best cars.

For Gran Turismo 6, that virtual currency is in the form of Credits, which come in denominations of 500K, 1 million, 2.5 million, and 7 million. With today's PlayStation Store update in Europe, we now know how much GT6's Credits will cost. Here's the numbers:

500,000 In-Game Credits (£3.99/€4.99)

1 Million In-Game Credits (£7.99/€9.99)

2,500,000 In-Game Credits (£15.99/€19.99)

7 Million In-Game Credits (£39.99/€49.99)

Oddly enough, the US PlayStation Store update does not seem to include pricing for GT6 Credits. We can't do a straight currency conversion to get US prices, but it's likely that our Credit prices will be in the same range as the Euro (€) prices: $5, $10, $20, and $50 respectively.

Sony has released a handy video showing the full Gran Turismo 6 car lineup with prices. Here's just a couple of big-ticket cars, the Credits needed to purchase them, and the estimated price of the car in dollars assuming you purchased specific denominations just to reach the Credit price:

Unlike Forza 5's 200+ car launch roster, Gran Turismo 6 has a ton of cars. In fact, it's over 1,200 cars in total, including 147 different Nissans, 108 different Hondas, and a Delorean. Eurogamer says that GT6's economy works like GT5's economy, so unlocking all of these cars the old way might not be a problem, but if you want to buy them, it'll cost you.

Gran Turismo and grinding for credits go hand in hand. The microtransactions just let you cheat this time. I still have flashbacks to the grind in GT3 where you basically had to start with a PT Cruiser and race it over, and over, and over, and over again just to earn enough money to buy an actual race car. I have a visceral reaction every time I see one in real life.

The reasoning of this generation: grinding is not fun (and everyone noticed that back on the PS1), but instead of tweaking the systems to provide smoother and more varied gameplay options, let's just charge everyone, left and right.

I'm really disappointed on the game design part of this generation so far.Edited December 2013 by Unknown

So these MT's are good for players who don't like playing games or working for rewards in games. They just want the reward.... the digital, virtual, not real reward. This entire concept of paying for easy progress in a game I purchase is disgusting.

I want to remind everyone that it is entirely in our power to end this crap. Don't buy the fake money with your money. Easy. Only I'm sure there will be plenty of people with more money than pride and any sort of sense of decency.
I'd like to care more, but I can't help thinking this should have been a PS4 game.